The Price of Fame - KJ1 Read online

  Thinking about what Kate had just said about the night of the attack and the way she felt, Jay was having a colossal debate in her head. “Can we take a walk?” she asked her companion suddenly.

  “Sure,” Kate responded. “We’re not far from Central Park, how about if we walk there?” She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she could tell that Jay was working something out in her head and that it was important. She threw some bills on the table and led the way out of the restaurant. Leaning in to the window of the limo, Kate told the driver that 63

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  they would be a while. Thinking about the area, she arranged to have him wait for them near the Plaza Hotel. She looked at her watch; it was just after 10:30 a.m. She was shocked to see that they had spent two hours over breakfast; it hadn’t seemed that long at all. She set the meeting time with the limo driver for noon.

  Walking side by side in silence for several blocks, the two women entered the park and took the footpath that skirted the reservoir. Jay chewed her bottom lip, kicking at a few stones on the path, her companion waiting for her to start the conversation.

  Looking up at the amazing woman walking next to her, Jay thought about Kate’s compassion and genuine caring; first on the ski slope and then during the attack on campus. She had been so gentle, yet so protective at the same time. She remembered Kate holding her hand, never letting it go until she fell asleep in the hospital, and covering her body with her sweatshirt. And she thought about all the many times after that night when she had longed to feel the comfort and safety of Kate’s arms around her again to chase away the demons.

  There really was no decision to make.

  “Um, I’m not really sure where to begin.” Jay’s voice quivered a little, her nerves apparent.

  “Tell me about your parents,” Kate said softly. After a moment’s hesitation, she followed her instincts. “Did he hurt you?”

  Jay’s head snapped up. “I...” She swallowed hard, wanting to bolt.

  Kate put a gentle hand on her arm at the expression of sheer terror on her face. “I’ve never told anyone,” she faltered, “except for the therapist I saw for a year after the attack on campus. I guess that night brought back a lot of bad memories for me.”

  They stopped walking, Kate taking Jay’s hands in hers. When sea green eyes gazed into crystal clear blue, nothing but a mixture of fierce protectiveness and heartbreaking compassion shown there. “It’s okay, Jay. He can’t hurt you now.”

  At that, the smaller woman began to cry, great, gulping sobs issuing forth from her soul, where she had hidden the awful reality of her childhood for so very long. Taking Jay into her arms, Kate held her close until all of the tears had been shed. She rocked her and rubbed her back and soothed her, willing away all that hurt and misplaced shame.

  “It started when I was four. When my sister died four years later, I wished it had been me instead.” Her voice broke. “I thought she was the lucky one.”

  “Oh, Jay,” Kate whispered, “I’m so glad it wasn’t.” And Jay knew she meant it; it warmed her to her very core.

  “Um, he told me if I told anyone about what he was doing to me, he would kill my mother and the family dog. I...I believed him.” Jay looked 64

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  up at Kate with tears on her lashes, shrugging one shoulder. “I look back on it now and I’m pretty sure they were just idle threats, but then, I didn’t know that.” She took a ragged breath. “He would come into my room in the middle of the night. I would be lying there and I’d see the doorknob turning, and I’d pray to anyone who would listen that it would be my mother checking on me and not him...but it never was.”

  Kate stroked the backs of Jay’s hands in mute comfort.

  “He...he would rape me and tell me how lucky I was to have him...that nobody else would ever care about me or want me.”

  “He was so wrong, Jay. So very, very wrong.” The emotion was evident in Kate’s voice.

  “Thanks. I always wanted to believe that. Anyway, it got so I wouldn’t sleep at night because I was terrified of the middle-of-the-night visits. I know my mother knew on some level what was going on, but she just seemed incapable of action. I suppose she did the best she could; who knows, maybe she had her own issues to deal with.

  “So I tried to be invisible, just be the most perfect child, and then maybe no one would notice me and he’d leave me alone.” She looked up again into blue eyes gone soft with compassion. “He didn’t. No matter what I did or didn’t do. I started writing as a way to disappear. As he would be raping my body, my mind would be off somewhere creating the most wonderful stories with happy endings.” Her tone turned wistful. “So I guess something good did come out of it, finally. I learned to use my imagination and write fiction, because Heaven knows it sure beat the heck out of reality for me.

  “Eventually, when I started getting my period, he left me alone.” She glanced up, a somewhat chagrined expression on her tear-stained face.

  “So now you know.”

  Kate lifted Jay’s chin gently with her fingers. “I’m so sorry for what happened to you. None of it was your fault, and it wasn’t anything a child could prevent. I know it’s hard to accept that, but it’s the truth.” She looked directly into the emerald eyes before her still shimmering with tears.

  “You are an extraordinary woman, Jay, full of compassion, wonder, humor and beauty. And you were an amazingly resourceful little girl who did what she needed to do to survive and become a lovely, talented, incredibly remarkable woman. I count myself exceptionally blessed to know you and I feel privileged beyond words that you trusted me enough to share your story. I want you to know that I will always be here for you.

  Always.”

  Jay knew somehow that she would.

  They started walking again, Kate keeping hold of one of Jay’s hands.

  She didn’t care what it looked like, she wanted Jay to feel a tangible 65

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  connection to her and to offer all of the strength and comfort she had to give.

  After a few minutes had passed, she decided lightening the mood was in order. “I’ve got an idea. Will you humor me?” Her tone had turned childishly pleading, and Jay had to smile. “Puh-lease? Please, please, please?”

  “Oh, okay,” Jay relented. “Boy, I can just imagine what you were like as a kid.”

  Kate began to jog, Jay struggling to keep up. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see,” she said mysteriously.

  After several blocks, Kate pulled Jay out of the park and onto the street. When the petite woman looked up, she laughed.

  “What?” Kate asked in an innocent tone.

  “I might have guessed that you had a carefully hidden juvenile streak in you.” Jay shook her head. They were standing in front of FAO

  Schwarz, the world’s largest toy store, on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-Eighth Street.

  “So,” the tall woman said, practically jumping up and down. “Can we go inside?”

  “C’mon, ya goofball,” Jay sighed as she pulled Kate across the street by the hand.

  They spent half an hour romping through the store, trying out the toys, jumping from key to key on the gigantic toy piano that took up a good portion of the floor, playing with the train sets, and generally being kids. Jay was delighted with Kate’s ability to have unfettered fun, and the dark-haired woman knew she had found the perfect playmate.

  When they were both totally exhausted, Kate called a time-out. “As much as I can’t believe I’m going to say this, we’ve got to go, Jay. The limo will be waiting and I’ve got to get you back to your place so that you can get ready for your interview with the governor.”

  “Spoilsport,” Jay joked, sticking out her tongue.

  Kate was glad she had been able to help her friend have some fun after the seriousness of their earlier conversation. She wished with all her heart that she could give the beautiful young woman back the childhood she’d never had. And she knew
for sure that if she ever saw Jay’s father, she would probably rip his heart out of his chest with her bare hands for hurting her.

  She told Jay she needed to go make a quick phone call at the pay phone upstairs and that she would be right back.

  When she returned several minutes later, they made their way to the Plaza Hotel and the waiting limo. Jay gave the driver her address in Greenwich Village on Christopher Street, where they arrived within 66

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  fifteen minutes. Kate asked him to wait in the car for her so that he could take her to the airport for her flight.

  After walking Jay to the door of her apartment, she stood back as her companion fitted her key in the lock, opened the door, and threw her garment bag and briefcase onto a nearby sofa. The writer looked back at her friend as she took a step inside. “Can you come in?”

  “I’d love to, but the limo is double-parked and your neighbors might not take too kindly to having their street blocked.”

  “Yeah,” Jay sighed heavily, “I guess you’re right.”

  Hearing the note of dejection in her friend’s voice, and not really wanting their time together to end either, Kate ventured, “Some other time?”

  Jay smiled brightly. “You’re on.” Impulsively she leaned forward and, on her tiptoes, gave Kate a sweet kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for everything. You sure know how to show a girl a good time.” Stepping back, she gazed up shyly into her friend’s eyes.

  Looking into those emerald green depths, Kate knew she couldn’t just walk away this time. Reaching out, she gently pulled the pretty blonde to her. Still maintaining eye contact, she inclined her head and softly touched her lips to Jay’s. Then she straightened up again, smiling.

  “I thought you said there was no kissing on the first date.”

  A mischievous gleam appeared in the deep blue eyes. “Number one, those were Fred’s rules; he’s just a teenager, after all. And number two, I wasn’t aware that this counted as an official date. But, if that’s the way you feel...”

  “Me and my big mouth,” Jay mumbled under her breath with an aggrieved expression.

  Fighting hard to keep the smile off her face, Kate pushed the door open a little wider and took a predatory step forward. Once inside the doorway, she slowly extended her arm and, staring hungrily at the blonde’s mouth, ran her thumb lightly across Jay’s lips. “I happen to think you have a perfect mouth.”

  Jay swallowed hard. Her lips parting slightly, she leaned into the touch, her teeth just grazing Kate’s thumb.

  The dark-haired woman thought she had never seen anything so sexy.

  She dragged her eyes away from Jay’s mouth and up to her eyes, shutting the door behind her with her foot and bending her head in one smooth motion to capture Jay’s mouth in a heart-stopping kiss.

  Several long, languorous moments later, Kate pulled back slowly and smiled. “I,” she began, but had to clear her throat before she could go on.

  “I hate to kiss and run, but I really do have to get going.” The note of regret in her voice was unmistakable.

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  “Mmm,” Jay hummed, her eyes still closed. It took a few more seconds before the words penetrated her happy fog. “Oh.” Her eyes flew open. “Yep. Right.”

  As Kate turned to go, her hand on the doorknob, Jay reached out and grasped her forearm, forgetting for a moment about her injuries. “Um, could...could I maybe call you tonight? You know,” she went on in a rush, embarrassed, “just to make sure you got home all right?”

  “Absolutely.” Kate grinned.

  When Jay didn’t release her arm and began shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, Kate looked at her questioningly.

  “Um, I don’t know how to reach you,” she said bashfully.

  Pulling out a business card and a pen, Kate wrote her home number and address on the back in bold strokes. “Now you do,” she said, handing over the card.

  “Okay then, are you sure it’s all right? I mean, I don’t want to disturb you or anything.”

  “Jay,” she laughed, “I’ve been disturbed for years.” With that, Kate opened the door and stepped into the hallway, turning around to wink at her friend before she disappeared.

  Closing the door slowly, the sound of the tall woman’s sexy laughter resonating pleasantly in her ears, Jay sighed dreamily, “If the world stopped spinning right now, I’d die a very happy woman.”

  Kate ducked inside the back of the limo as the driver held the door for her. Once inside and alone, she leaned back into the leather interior and closed her eyes, a goofy grin splitting her face. “Oh no, Fred isn’t getting to kiss you, Jay. You’re already taken and I will not suffer the competition lightly.”

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  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ay leaned her back against the apartment door and stared unseeing J into her living room. She touched her fingertips to her lips, unable to process the wonder of what had just happened, and not willing to trust that it really had. Her head was spinning; in less than forty-eight hours her entire existence had been turned upside down. She had gone to Albany grudgingly because the governor could not see her at his New York City office. That one tiny scheduling snafu had brought the writer face to face with a vital piece of her past and, she dared to hope, of her future, as well.

  From the day she had seen the beautiful stranger on the tennis court, the mystery woman had commanded her attention. And then when she had rescued Jay on the ski trail and again on campus, she had captured her imagination. For her two and a half remaining years in school, the writer had used Kate as her muse, creating fiction around her dark, confident persona. It had been Jay’s jealously guarded and somewhat guilty secret. She smiled ironically. Nothing she had conjured or written came close to matching the reality she had been party to in just the past twelve hours she had spent in Kate’s presence.

  Jay’s thoughts strayed to Sarah. She and Sarah had become lovers early in their sophomore year. They had been friends as freshmen and had decided to room together beginning the next fall. It had seemed logical; they were compatible in terms of study habits and the hours they kept and they were best friends. Sarah had made the move to deepen the relationship. She was sweet and bookish, non-threatening and comfortable, and Jay had gotten caught up in the wonder of something new.

  It hadn’t been until Jay’s encounter with the tall beauty on the ski slope that she had realized that what she shared with Sarah hadn’t filled that empty space inside of her. It was as if she had been waiting for something or someone all her life, and the moment Kate had put her arms around her to comfort and warm her, Jay knew she had found it. But she 69

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  was no fool; she understood that her rescuer had just been doing her job and hadn’t felt what she did.

  So Jay had resigned herself to the fact that she was never going to have that once-in-a-lifetime fairytale ending where two souls unite and become as one. She had stayed with Sarah, who offered her companionship and friendship and a love deeper than she could give in return. She consoled herself with her fiction, where things could be as she dreamed.

  Jay knew why Sarah had just popped into her head for the first time in a long time. The only fight they had ever had centered on the beautiful, mysterious stranger.

  “What is this?” Sarah waved Jay’s journal in front of her face. When Jay didn’t answer immediately, she went on, her voice dripping with sarcasm and undisguised hurt. “Let me read it to you, in case you don’t recognize it: ‘The sexy dark-haired woman took me in her arms, warmth radiating from her very pores, as a searing heat spread from my aching center, starting a brushfire in my veins. Her blue eyes burned through me like glowing hot coals, leaving me wanting so much more.’

  “Does that sound familiar, Jay? Does it?” Sarah was crying.

  “What are you doing reading my journal?” Jay’s voice was cold, indignant. “That is a total invasion of my privacy. Now
I can’t even trust you with my stuff? Do I have to start locking everything away?”

  “You’re cheating on me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous; I have never cheated on you.”

  “Well, if you don’t think that this,” Sarah waved the hefty leather-bound volume around in the air again, “constitutes cheating, at least in your heart, than I don’t know what does.”

  “Don’t you ever, ever read my journal again. Do you understand me?” Jay stormed out, returning several hours later to a darkened room.

  After a night during which neither one of them slept but both pretended to, Sarah had apologized. The apology was accepted and they had moved on from there.

  That horrible night that Jay had almost been raped had nearly been her undoing in many ways. The attack had brought memories of her childhood back like a herd of thundering horses. It was as if she had been reliving that entire trauma again as she lay there helpless to stop her assailant, and then her dark-haired heroine had shown up and saved her, holding her and comforting her again. Although Jay had been nearly paralyzed with fear and despair, her body had registered Kate’s presence and her soul knew it had found its home.

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  Awakening after the sedative had worn off in the hospital, she had opened her eyes willing the compelling woman to be there. Instead, it had been ever-dependable Sarah sitting by her bedside. Feeling guilty, Jay had tried hard to hide her disappointment. She had disappeared more and more into her journal and she and Sarah had drifted further and further apart. Sarah had clung desperately to the relationship but by the time they were ready to graduate, even she had known that it was over.